Ill-advised reviews and a fortunate no-ball

A DEAD BALL THAT PRODUCED A WICKET 

The second ball of the 10th over, left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja's first, was a no-ball to Mushfiqur Rahim, who played the ball away for a single and brought Shakib Al Hasan on strike. Because the batsmen had crossed over, India captain Rohit Sharma had the opportunity to change the field for the free hit. He had not finished doing so when Jadeja ran in to bowl to Shakib Al Hasan. Sharma waved his arms frantically from midwicket to stop the bowler and the umpire, having seen Sharma, signalled a dead ball just as Jadeja delivered the ball. It was played to cover and no run resulted, but the dead ball meant that Jadeja would have to bowl the free-hit ball again. As the Indians seemed to converge upon the umpire to protest, Shakib did his impression of a teapot and stood watching from the striker's end. 

A veteran of 191 matches, Shakib then lashed the free hit to the cover fence, and betraying his needless anger at the short interlude, then hammered a sweep through a vacant square leg for four. 

The wily Mahendra Singh Dhoni conferred with Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan was moved to square leg. Shakib did not seem to notice, and even though he had taken eight runs off two balls, hit the next delivery straight to Dhawan to depart for 17. 

MITHUN LUCKY AND THEN NOT 

Jadeja was in the thick of it again in the 14th over. Slanting the ball into the Mohammad Mithun from around the wicket, Jadeja appealed loudly and unsuccessfully after it seemed that the right-hander had played it off the bat to short cover. A brief discussion between Jadeja and Sharma later, India decided not to review, but television replays showed that the ball had hit pad before bat and would have hit the middle and leg stumps halfway up. 

In Jadeja's next over, the 16th of the innings, an identical ball produced an identical shot from Mithun. There was a drinks break in between and umpire Ahsan Raza of Pakistan would have had time to check whether his decision was right. Whatever the reason, he made the right call this time, which is more than can be said of Mithun. He reviewed immediately, wasting Bangladesh's solitary means of challenging the umpire's decision. 

MAHMUDULLAH PUNISHED FOR MITHUN'S CRIME 

Bangladesh's innings began to unravel pretty quickly and at 101 for five, the only hope seemed to be Mahmudullah Riyad, who had slowly progressed to 25 off 50 balls and was looking to make a bit of lemonade out of the sour lemons his colleagues had left behind. A Bhuvneshwar Kumar skidder hit him on the back leg in the 33rd over and he was surprised to see umpire Gregory Brathwaite's finger go up.

He signalled the T for a review immediately, but was the picture of despondent frustration when he realised that Mithun had used up the lifeline that should have been his. He trudged off as television replays showed what he already knew -- a big inside edge. 

A CATCH REDEFINED

In the 11th over of Bangladesh's defence of their paltry 173, Shikhar Dhawan hit Shakib uppishly towards short midwicket, where Mehedi Hasan Miraz dove forward to attempt a catch. The emphasis should be on 'attempt', because even a 100 yards away it seemed that the ball had not carried. However, Mehedi was lying with on his elbows with a smile on his face, and Shakib, just 10 yards away asked the umpire to go to the TV umpire to check, which he dutifully did. 

The replay showed that Mehedi really had no intention of catching it in the first place as he dove forward with palms pointing down, which any schoolboy cricketer will tell you is not the way you catch anything. The ball landed on the grass and he closed his palms over it, which raises the question of why he thought that in these days of multi-angle replays that would ever be in any doubt. Perhaps he forgot what constitutes a clean catch.